By Shuli Ren

Reuters reported South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which represents 64% of the country’s gold miners, would give a labor strike notice on Friday and start the strike as soon as Sunday night.

This has not been a good year for gold miners worldwide. Market Vectors ETF Trust Gold Miners ETF Fund (GDX) lost 39% so far.

But the South African gold miners fared even worse. AngloGold lost 58% this year, Gold Fields fell 51.6%, and Harmony Gold slumped 59%.

Forget the talk of global slowdown or the end of the commodity super cycle. Labor issue is the single, biggest factor that suppresses South Africa’s gold miners. Just look at this graph – the discrepancy between worldwide demand and production from South Africa is striking. The country never caught the super cycle ride:

About Emerging Markets Daily

Emerging markets have been synonymous with growth, but the outlook for individual nations is constantly changing. Countries from Brazil and Russia to Turkey face challenges including infrastructure bottlenecks, credit issues and political shifts. Barrons.com’s Emerging Markets Daily blog analyzes news, data and research out of emerging markets beyond Asia to help readers navigate the investment landscape.

Barron’s veteran Dimitra DeFotis has been blogging about emerging market investing since traveling to India and Turkey. Based in New York, she previously wrote for Barron’s about U.S. equity investing, including cover stories and roundtables on energy themes. Dimitra was among the first digital journalists at the Chicago Tribune and started her career as a police reporter at the Daily Herald in the Chicago suburbs. Dimitra holds degrees from the University of Illinois and Columbia University, where she was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in the business and journalism schools. She studies multiple languages and photography.